The main problem is that most commentators are accustomed to thinking of spiritual schools as 'systems', which are more or less alike, and which depend upon dogma and ritual: and especially upon repetition and the application of continual and standardised pressures upon their followers.The Sufi way, except in degenerate forms which are not to be classified as Sufic, is entirely different from this.

If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him.

The word 'choice' is a fraud while people choose only what they have been taught to choose.

To be obsessed by the idea of freedom, for instance, is itself a form of slavery. Such people are in the chains of the hope of freedom, and are therefore able to do little else than struggle with them.

There is a succession of experiences which together constitute the educational and developmental ripening of the learner, according to the Sufis. People who think that each gain is the goal itself will freeze at any such stage, and cannot learn through successive and superseding lessons.

When tomorrow comes, think tomorrow's thoughts.

None should say: 'I can trust' or 'I cannot trust' until he is a master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.